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January 2004

January 2004: First of the New Year Edition

Cherry Bombs Reunion

The band Rodney Crowell put together as a Texas expatriate, it served as the anchor of the Southern California country-rock movement that was the legacy of the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt and eventually Emmylou Harris. We’re talking Vince Gill, Tony Brown (the man behind Steve Earle, Lyle Lovett, Nanci Griffith, Patty Loveless, the Mavericks and an Elvis alum), Hank DeVito (who penned “Queen of Hearts”) and Richard Bennett (Mark Knopfler’s strum de camp)—plus supplementals Eddie Bayers, John Hobbs and Michael Rhodes. The Cherry Bombs were Crowell’s baby, Gill’s refuge from Pure Prairie League and Rosanne Cash’s touring soul… and they were the crucible of new wave/pop merging with real live high flying country music. Organic, yet rooted. Deep, yet willing to smile. Honky and tonky and country and Elvis Costello. It didn’t push the envelope, it re-created it… and it did it with the songs of a man who could only be considered modern country music’s Bob Dylan. Twenty years later, it’s the same combustion—only the lives have been lived, the insight gleaned and the grooves deepened.

Heavy whipping cream

Decadence as close as your grocer’s refrigeration unit. Poor it in coffee for something richer and deeper than any blended Starbucks moment. Whip it with cocoa for the ultimate dessert topping—or chill it with layers of almonds for an Atkins’ friendly dinner finisher. Use it in your quiche for an amazing set up. And as a sauce thickener, well, it adds 10 points of exquisiteness. Calories, yes. But if you’re going to live, then live out loud!

Anatomy of the Spirit—Caroline Myss, PhD

A medical intuitive, Myss can scan people for their issues—medical or otherwise. This book intertwines Christian, Jewish and Hindu beliefs and aligns their meanings with the seven chakras or energy centers in our bodies. If it sounds like so much hokum pokum, I get it—but if you think about the places the energy rests (throat, stomache, heart, pubis bone, tail bone, back top of your head and right between your eyes) and then consider the places in your body you get those “funny feelings,” those “intuitions” that something’s up—that’s energy, and this book will start making a lot more sense. Plus there are health ties that will leave you with your jaw on the floor. But don’t believe me, go to your library and find out.

Jupiter

You can soooo see it! Out there, this great big bright light. Sparkling —and reminding us just how vast the world and universe we live in is. If you wanna marvel or be humbled, look up. Look just to the right of the moon and smile.

Kleenex with Lotion

It’s cold season. For anyone who believes the tissue is as much the problem with that sore red nose as the cold, moving through it, this is the answer. At first it feels a little bit too moist, but the more you sneeze, the more grateful you become. Promise.

Clinique Black Eye Liner

Zero to Chrissie Hynde in 4 quick strokes. Top lashes, lined. Bottom-lid outside corner to the middle of your iris, and viola! Instant attitude, no biker jacket required. And if you smudge it, you go from brutal punk rock/queen of the night to smoky femme fatale.

What You Don’t Know

There’s always a wrinkle you can’t see—the mitigating circumstance that defies explanation, but can save the day. Or the reality you won’t acknowledge for fear of betraying someone you love. Either way, what you find out if you’re willing to see it, accept it, deal with it will set you free. Indeed, it will give you greater compassion for yourself and others, open up a while new way of looking at the world—and make you aware on whole other planes.

Fantasy Golf

Envying my friends who play in those “fantasy” baseball leagues, but never having the acumen to get in on that action, this is the same name, different game. And it opens up a whole new league of compatriots and rapscallions—marauding the cyberfairways in the name of the weekly winnings. Watching the PGA leader board has never had a vested interest before—hopefully it won’t taint my amateur status! Oh, wait… having not swung a club seriously in two decades, nothing could disarm my state of utter amateur.

www.rockthevote.com

There’s just no excuse! You don’t have to drive anywhere, figure out which room, hope you have the right hours. You hit this site, answer the questions, print out—then put in an envelope and mail to the address THEY give you. Nothing is simpler. Show up. Sign up. Help your country get up… because democracy only works if we make our voices heard.

www.rockthevote.com

Bras That Almost Match Your Clothing

The ultimate in bratty accessorizing. Except that straps showing or a neckline shifting makes you look pulled together rather than tacky. And when you sport something a little bit beyond the obvious, you just have a stealth sense of sexy. You may dress like a banker, but who you are underneath it all is a jump ball—and why not be your own girl? Have fun with your foundation garments, the attitude will exude without a word.

Bill Lloyd’s Pure Pop Sensibility

They are the great ones: Paul Westerberg, Jules Shear, Alex Chilton. The roots pop songwriters who could roll a hook and never glop it up, make you smile an innocent smile of joy and never sell your moment out. And somehow Bill Lloyd (half of the roots/pop country duo Foster & Lloyd) hasn’t made the list yet. Currently touring with Don Dixon (dBs, REM), Robert Crenshaw (Marshall Crenshaw’s brother) and Jamie Hooper (who’s a N.C. boy that teams with Lloyd in a more congruent pairing), if you want your faith in pop before the Neptunes and the Matrix restored, this is the deal. R&B grooves, wide-eyed truths, clever lyric twists and performances from the core. Not the over-the-top-MTV-moonman glossy/shiny/bulked up fare we expect, but riveting for all its unadorned exuberance and depth of soul performance just the same.

Pink Light Bulbs

To a girl for whom there just isn’t enough pink in the world, these are obviously a gift from above. Like rose colored glasses without the add-on lens, pink light bulbs cast a warm happy glow in any room where you’ll put’em in the socket. If you wanna bathe your world in love, you can buy a dog, hire an escort or use some tinted light bulbs. Me, I opt for the first and last—figuring a romantic glow and the love of Zelda Fitzgerald Spaniel is a full-house on a cold night.

Shanghai Street Dumplings, PF Changs

In California, they’d be called bao (pronounced: bow). But by any name, the light dough encased minced, seasoned meat is a womb-returning morsel of warmth and comfort unlike any other. These are chicken with cilantro and soy… and are fresh and tasty, though the barbeque pork ones (try Chin Chin in Southern California) are a bit more juxtaposing of the sweet and savory. Regardless, bad day, too much rain, a good chill, just wanting your Mommy—but not wanting to look like your caving: PF Changs. Street dumplings. No one has to know!

New Orleans by Julia Reed Food & Wine (January)

Newsweek and Vogue Editor Julia Reed has a way of living that makes Auntie Mame look anorexic—and her recipes and reminiscences in The New York Times transform basic classic food into cause for celebration. Here, she takes on a city that’s been her on-again, off-again home with the same zeal—and you get an insider’s sensual trip through the snacks and shopping that may reinvent one of the most imagination-capturing city’s in this nation.

Chair Dancing

For those too meek to rock, we salute you… Sanguine (adj) [sang-gwine] 1) Of the color of blood: red. 1b) Ruddy. 2) Cheerfully confident; optimistic. Talk about poles! And yet, what’s more optimistic than passion? And what is the color of hearts enflamed? I rest my case. One more word that you can flex and impress that is so utterly common, working it in should be only nominally challenging. And in the irony and ecstasy tangentiary: Sanguinary (adj) 1) accompanied by bloodshed. 2) bloody. Cousins… or crimes of ardor? Who’s to say. But the implications are delicious.

Jack Emerson, RIP

Back when cow-punk was raging in L.A., Jack Emerson was on the front line of what might’ve been the Southeast’s answer with his company Praxis. If Jason & the Scorchers were the East Coast (this is getting too rap for my taste, I confess) cow punkers, Praxis was also ground zero for “hickrock” with the glorious Georgia Satellites—whose “Hands To Yourself” is still a vital bar-room classic—were the lower right hand corner of the nation’s answer to the Replacements and pulp fiction character Webb Wilder brought dry-as-martini hillbilly roll to a boil with his songs of mystery, terrestrials (extra and otherwise) and teen movie love and antics, along with singer/songwriter/Dylan-for-a-moment Steve Forbert with his heart-on-his-denim-jacket and the blur beyond his windshield offering a simpler, sweeter refuge for us all.

Hot Water with Lemon

An older French facialist at the original Elizabeth Arden Salon in Palm Beach used to make me promise to do this. “Every day.” Aside from helping your skin not fall victim to intruders, it keeps one healthier and running cleaner—because the cleansing, astringent proponents that make this a bonus for one’s skin also act on the blood, the organs and everything else.Not too strong, but not weak, either. It’s the perfect thing 30 minutes even before coffee!

Petunia Nail Polish Frederick Fekkai

The sole sister of NARS’ Funny Face lipstick, Petunia is the low-rider metallica fuchsia that’s as deep as it comes without turning purple. It’s a jolt of color that leaps out—from toe nails, especially, but the fingernails of the especially brave and challenging spirits out there. Imagine Key West in a bottle of nail polish, but only on the most hedonistic holidays!

Beachland Ballroom Cleveland, Ohio

At a time when roots music venues are shuttering (Greenwich Village’s Bottomline may’ve been run into the bottomline), former journalist Cindy Barber has opened the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland to serve as a home to acts that matter that aren’t packing stadiums, or even theaters. That quality doesn’t beget quantity is another argument altogether, but the fact that a place like Cleveland, Ohio has a place for the Buddy and Julie Millers, the Last Train Homes, the Jay Farrars is good news. It makes it that much harder to surrender the notion that a dream this songwriter-driven can survive and thrive.

Lemonade Souffles

Frozen lemonade in its liquid form make this sweet and tart and light as a cloud all at once. The recipe is a Sunday New York Times Magazine special… and probably available through back issues. Five eggs separated, a quarter cup sugar and a pinch of salt… and a bunch of whipping makes for some pretty impressive deserting. And it’s nowhere near as difficult as the myth of the fallen soufflé would presuppose

T-Bone Burnett cover story, Lloyd Sachs No Depression

Rock’s great enigma. The man who twisted the nobs for Los Lobos, the Wallflowers, Counting Crows… who created that amazing evocativo soundscape bridge between the Divine and the secular River of Time and who beat the game at its own game, by refusing to take the bit or follow the rules.By seceding from the mill, he created an album that put acoustic roots music back at the fore with the Oh, Brother soundtrack, gave Rodney Crowell a forum for his personal rumination on adulthood with Fate’s Right Hand and transitions back into the studio. himself His thinking debunks much of the music business’s conventional wisdom, though his comments also reveal an uncommon intelligence that defies most who chase this dream. Burnett’s tightrope—as well as those fetching progressive-pop records from wife Sam Phillips—is an engaging as it is vexing for us mere mortals. But oh what a standard to aspire to.

Almost Famous—Various (Advance Vinyl Pressing)

Perhaps my best birthday present, with the 12x12 image of Penny Lane, her sunglasses reflecting the glory and potential of the moment. What’s more appropriate than the songs that served as sonic stakes for a motion picture fence about coming of age as a chronicler who captured the truths of a band finding their way? Populated by pixie-ish figures and the sparkle of dreams, the warm sound of classic delivery is too yummy to miss.

Patrick Demarchelier Photos of Renee Zelweger Harper’s Bazaar, Feb 04

Very old Hollywood. Slightly soft focus black and white images that are erotic in their promise, yet pristine in the woman captured. Zellweger has always been a woman in full blossom, and this creates a fomenting tribute to the fullness of womanhood. Ripe. Glamourous to the point where even a bathrobe sighs “elegance,” and the use of light speaks volumes in and of itself.

Throwing Your Own Parties

Takes the heat off everyone. The work can be kept to a minimum and no one feels guilty. The level of horror is directly calibrated to one’s own tolerance for same. The tone can reflect the victim’s current state of mind. And it gives you the perfect excuse to honor the attendees as much as oneself. Highly recommended following a very significant birthday.

Organic Unsalted Almonds

Better than any snack between meal holdover I’ve encountered. And it’s the good kind of fat—so you’re helping your heart and your health in the process. No. It’s a complete sentence. REALLY. Yes! See above.

Steve Goodman and Fred Knobloch wrote it—an almost baroque wisp of cocktail jazz that spirals around the truth that some ties don’t need to be official to bind. No matter what happens, the mark of the other is singed upon our soul… and with Cash’s wet, lush alto as something to descend fully into, there’s no doubt about the echoes and murmurs that sound whether we’re in the lover’s presence or past. Included on her alterna-leaning Retrospective, to have heard her sing it on a spare stage at Los Angeles’ uber-showcase club was to experience sensual divinity bathed in a blue light. Breathing was optional as wings of emotion lifted you up, set you down gently and made you ponder every connection that’s illuminated your life—because some heartbeats go on long after the moment fades.

Superbowl Ads

It’s awesome Payton Manning won his very first play-off game—and it may be the harbinger of his first Superbowl ring. But football, schmootball, what’s a game when there are all those spectacular testaments to consumerism? If you wanna have your fancy tickled, your attention grabbed, your jaw dropped - it’s all between the plays on Superbowl Sunday, bay-beeee! Millions are spent for 30 seconds of glory—and when the selling starts stacking up, you know you’re in for some good stuff.

Getting On A Tear

You know the feeling, when the momentum pulls up like a plane leaving the ground. You get so caught up in what you’re doing, it carries you along. You are the moment, the moment is you—and the actual activity becomes both its own reason and a kind of meditation in motion. Unless you’re doing something destructive, there’s a release to this that is second to none… where you lose your personal boundaries and are the thing, the movement, the reaction. Whether it’s knitting (believe it or not), chasing the night, laughing out loud or scrubbing bathrooms, there’s prayer and beauty in the details of not recognizing, just being that’ll put you in another state of mind.

Good & Plenty

Licorice jelly bellies with a crunchy coating. In the oh-so-50s rockabilly palette of bubblegum, white and black, Good & Plenty freshen breath, spark the tongue and give you some candy goodness that isn’t so sweet you feel guilty.